Marines Pick Colt for New Pistol

Military.com| by Matthew Cox
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The Marine Corps has tapped Colt Defense LLC to make more than 10,000 new Close Quarter Battle Pistols for the service's elite special operations troops.

The July 19 contract, which has a total value of $22.5 million, brings an end to the Corps' exhaustive search for the top .45 caliber, 1911-style pistol to replace the fleet of worn-out Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, M45 pistols.

Colt Defense, based in Hartford, Conn., was the original maker of John Browning's revered 1911 design a potent handgun that served all branches of the U.S. Military for more than 70 years until it was replaced by the M9 9mm pistol in 1985.

Marine officials, however, say they didn't play favorites.

"It was performance based. . . . We picked the best-performing pistol," said Charles Clark III, who oversees infantry weapons requirements at the Corps' Combat Development and Integration office in Quantico, Va. "There were three candidates that made the final round of consideration," but Clark would not discuss the competitors.

Marine testers placed a high priority on accuracy. The winner had to be capable of putting five-shot groups on target that "didn't exceed four inches by four inches at 25 yards" from an unsupported firing position, Clark said. Reliability and magazine life were other important factors in the decision.

The new Close Quarter Battle Pistols will be very similar to the M45s they are replacing this fall. They will have a rail for mounting lights, a custom trigger, a manual safety, improved ergonomics and glowing Tritium sights for low-light conditions.

The most visual difference is the Colt models will come in Coyote tan instead of gunmetal, Clark said.

The Corps began issuing custom 1911 .45 pistols to its elite Force Reconnaissance units in the 1990s. Gunsmiths at the Quantico Weapons Training Battalion Precision Weapons Section hand built them from old 1911s that had been replaced by the M9 in the mid 1980s.

The creation of the first MARSOC units in 2006 caused the requirement to grow from 400 pistols to 4,000 pistols. Finding enough surplus 1911s for the Precision Weapons Section's custom rebuilds became impractical.

"We realized that hand building 4,000 guns was not sustainable," Clark said.

Marine officials would not discuss the individual price for each new pistol. But the $22.5 million contract to Colt will allow the Corps to buy replacements for the new pistols as they wear out, Clark said. The contract also includes some money for spare parts.

"The contract is built so we can re-buy the approved acquisitions objective three times, so we can buy 4,000 guns three times," Clark said. "These pistols will be getting used a lot; deployed a lot so the guns are going to get shot out."

MARSOC operators stay on a rigorous deployment cycle, "so they fire a lot of rounds. It's a 15,000-round plus [training] work-up to a deployment," Clark said.
"It's more efficient to replace the guns over time instead of attempting to completely rebuild them."

"The chief aim of all government is to preserve the freedom of the citizen. His control over his person, his property, his movements, his business, his desires should be restrained only so far as the public welfare imperatively demands. The world is in more danger of being governed too much than too little.

It is the teaching of all history that liberty can only be preserved in small areas. Local self-government is, therefore, indispensable to liberty. A centralized and distant bureaucracy is the worst of all tyranny.

Taxation can justly be levied for no purpose other than to provide revenue for the support of the government. To tax one person, class or section to provide revenue for the benefit of another is none the less robbery because done under the form of law and called taxation."

John W. Davis, Democratic Presidential Candidate, 1924. Davis was one of the greatest trial and appellate lawyers in US history. He also served as the US Ambassador to the UK.

Re: Marines Pick Colt for New Pistol

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July 21 2012, 7:40 PM

My choice for close quarter combats would always be this one.
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You got to hand it to the Swiss/Germans mate they sure know how to make good guns! Living in the UK and having never served all i know about these weapons is from reading but when you take into account the SEALS, SAS and many of the other best units in the world prefer the P226 it sort of tells you something!

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Speaking of the Eurofighters close-in combat prowess, Major Marc Grï¿½ne, CO of 742 (Zapata), the second squadron of the wing, described to assembled aviation journalists how, on a recent visit to France to demo the aircraft, he had won two out of two battles against the Dassault Rafale in mock within visual range dogfights. Both fights were a standard set-up and merge at 21,000ft and 30,000ft he recounted, adding that the higher the fight the better the Eurofighter liked it. He singled out the Eurofighters excess power as its trump card over the Rafale

Re: Marines Pick Colt for New Pistol

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July 22 2012, 12:15 PM

You got to hand it to the Swiss/Germans mate they sure know how to make good guns! Living in the UK and having never served all i know about these weapons is from reading but when you take into account the SEALS, SAS and many of the other best units in the world prefer the P226 it sort of tells you something!

Absolutely mate..The SAS set the standard by which all other Special Forces are measured,its the same with P226.

Re: Marines Pick Colt for New Pistol

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July 23 2012, 7:18 PM

Its interesting that the 1911 is still a viable choice as a military pistol. As to the 226, I carried a 226 for almost 20 years. I love it. A fabulous pistol with 100% reliability. A couple years ago, however, I went to the 220, in essence a 226 in .45.

Remember what the Marines want this pistol to do. This is designed to be a Close Combat Pistol, in other words, a last resort weapon. With the Geneva Conventions preventing anything other than FMJ ammunition, the Marines wanted the stopping power of the .45. Frankly, the .45 makes perfect sense. I'm really not sure what advantages any other .45 pistol has over the 1911 as most are in the 7 to 10 round range as far as magazine capacity. I think no polymer pistols were considered. If they were the Springfield XD45 has a 14 round magazine.

Nemo me impune lacesset,

"The chief aim of all government is to preserve the freedom of the citizen. His control over his person, his property, his movements, his business, his desires should be restrained only so far as the public welfare imperatively demands. The world is in more danger of being governed too much than too little.

It is the teaching of all history that liberty can only be preserved in small areas. Local self-government is, therefore, indispensable to liberty. A centralized and distant bureaucracy is the worst of all tyranny.

Taxation can justly be levied for no purpose other than to provide revenue for the support of the government. To tax one person, class or section to provide revenue for the benefit of another is none the less robbery because done under the form of law and called taxation."

John W. Davis, Democratic Presidential Candidate, 1924. Davis was one of the greatest trial and appellate lawyers in US history. He also served as the US Ambassador to the UK.